fxRender Help

Example

A sample spreadsheet that demonstrate many of the features and capabilities of fxRender

Render

This part of the ribbon defines what is rendered.

Ref

Render using Cell References - Renders the selected cell by using the absolute cell references. Therefore, if a formula uses a Name that refers to cell or range, then it is converted back into the 'A1' reference style.

Example 1

The rendered equation will appear in the first empty space to the right of the selected formula.

Appearance

Variables that refer to the cell using the 'A1' style coordinate system (i.e. column letter followed by row number) are always shown in Green Text.

Function names, e.g. sin() or min(), are always shown in Dark Red.

Constant values, operators and other symbols are shown in Black.

Named Excel cells, which can be used to refer to specific cells within a formulas, are replaced with the 'A1' style cell reference in the rendered equation - useful for finding the exact cells that are being referenced.

Usage

New Equations: With new rendered equations, the system using the current defaults: These include all the formatting pane options and the current state of both Display Assignment (), Display Units () and Box() buttons.

Existing Equations: Where there is an existing rendered equation for a formula, the default action is to reuse as many of the properties from the previous equation as possible, including:

Display Assignment ()

Display Units ()

Box() and

Format (i.e. gif, emf or text)

Position of the equation. Note: Rendered equations can be dragged to any other location on the same sheet and also resized.

The Font and Font size (i.e. Arial, Times New Roman)

The Style (i.e. Excel, Math, Matrix)

Shift Key: Press the shift-key when rendering a formula to ensure the newly rendered equation uses the default settings shown on the toolbar bar.

Ctrl Key: Press the ctrl-key at the same time as selecting the Cell Reference to toggle this button on/off. When permanently enabled, newly rendered equations will automatically include this rendering option alongside any other form of the equation that the user selects.

Updating: All features of any rendered equation can be changed, by selecting one or more rendered equations (or formula cells) and clicking the alternative formatting required from the toolbar bar.

These Usage instruction apply equally to all the main Rendering buttons, detailed below

Name

Render using Cell Names - Renders the selected cell using, where possible, text labels or assigned Excel cell names, to define the referenced cells. If no name or label exists, then the cell will be represented with standard 'A1' Excel reference style.

Example 2

The rendered equation will appear in the first empty space to the right of the selected formula, with blue text used to indicate named variables.

Note: in order to show the symbols "σ" (sigma) and "τ" (tau) as an index of "s", use an underscore, '_', between the "s" and the symbol, e.g. 's_σ'. If you want multiple characters as part of the subscript, use '_{...}' as in "s_{word}". Equally, superscripts are produced using the tilde, '^', as in 'x^2'.

Example 3 - Matrix

Font:

Times New Roman

Font size:

16

Style:

Excel

Select cell D8, which contains the formula "=F5*D5".

Click the Cell Name button.

As this formula refers to elements within a table, fxRender is unsure which column or row represents a heading. In the current case as the 'First Non Numeric Value' is selected in fxRender-Settings-Options, then the tool used the left most cell with text that is considered to be part of the block of data that forms the matrix, i.e. there are no empty cell between the chosen title at the referenced variable.

As there are no detected column heading, the fxRender uses the a numeric subscript to indicate the relative offset of the referenced cell from the heading.

To explore this further, try deleting the word 'Susan' and repeat the above steps.

In this example the headings in Row 2 and Column B are now bold.

Again Cell D8 is selected and the Cell Name button is pressed.

A combined name is now used for each variable, using the column headings with the row heading as a subscript.

Note that the action of detecting heading base on bold font is enable through fxRender-Settings-Options. By changing these setting you may also indicate heading using italics, operators (e.g. =, <) or any other character you choose.

In this example, the column heading have been highlighted in bold.

Although there are potentially row headings, fxRender recognises that the user has marked the tops cells in each column as a heading (using bold in this case), so this take preference over any other titles it may choose to use.

You can off-course also bold just the rows you want to used in titles.

In this instance this has exactly the same effect as the automatic title selection we saw above.

Appearance

Names variables are always shown in Blue.

Usage

fxRender will always try to associate a name to a cell that it wants to use in a formula, using a pattern matching algorithm, which selects the best possible label for a variable in this order:

A cell amongst a matrix of numbers, or which has a header identified in some way (i.e. bold, italic,...).

The cell has been named using the inbuilt Excel naming system.

Text to the left of the cell that could be used as a label.

And any text above the cell that could be used as a label.

Where you have many numbers in a grid or matrix, it could be dangerous for fxRender to infer a name purely based on what text exists to the left or above. For this reason the system can be configured through the settings-options dialogue to only use text that is either bold, italic, or which contains an operator or specified symbol.

When creating labels for cells you can also use LaTeX mark-up to describe the variable, e.g. '\alpha + \beta'. fxRender allows LaTeX and text to be intermingled, but with more complicated expressions this isn't always helpful. So if you include the backslash symbol ('\') within your label, then fxRender switches to strict LaTeX notation. One significant consequence of this is that spaces between words are no longer recognised, so to overcome this, put '\:' where you would otherwise want to include a space, as in "hello\:world".

Usage

Display Assignment - Add or remove the name of the current cell from the rendered equation. This name is derived from either the 'Name' assigned to the cell being rendered or from the text in the cell immediately to the left of that cell.

Example 6

Font:

Times New Roman

Font size:

16

Style:

Excel

Cells C5 and C8 are selected, and rendered using Cell Name.

If Display Assignment () is not already on, then press the button while formulas or rendered equations are still selected.

The rendered equations are shown to the right of the selected formulae, with their assigned name (or label).

Appearance

Text (but not formulae) in the cell immediately to the left of the selected equation is added to the front of the equation with an operator separating it from the main equation. The default operator placed between the left and right sides of the equation is '=', but a variety of alternatives can also be used is they appear at the end of the selected cells label:

Cell Text

Example Output

a==

a<=

a>=

a!=

a=>

a~

a~=

a~==

a==>

Usage

For existing rendered equations, the Display Assignment button will turn on/off this feature for all selected equations

Display Assignment can be used on its own to render text (usually LaTeX) within a cell. To avoid confusion the original text is hidden by making its text colour the same as the background. The rendered text will be aligned with the right side of the selected cell. Important: The easiest way to restore the original text colour is to select the rendered equation and press the Erase Selected button (). For example:

Text within cell (LaTeX)

Rendered cell

\alpha+\beta

\int_{0}^{x}13x\cdot dx

f(x)=\int_{a}^{b}K(x,t)\phi(t)dt

f\xi =\int_{-\infty}^{x}f(x)e ^{-2\pi ix\xi }dx

For help with writing LaTeX, use the CodeCogs Online Equation Editor (also reached with the button) and copy the LaTeX text created back into the cell in Excel.

The default state of the Display Assignment button can be configured either by selecting an empty cell and clicking the button or click the button with control-key selected. The button will then appear as permanently pressed or depressed. Thereafter all newly rendered equations will adopt this setting.

Display Units - Add or remove units from the rendered equation. The units are taken from the cell immediately to the right of the selected cell being rendered, or from cells references by the formula. If no related rendered equation exists, this button will render the currently selected cell and equate this to the content of the cell immediately to the left.

Example 7

Font:

Arial

Font size:

14

Style:

Excel

When the Display Units option is selected, fxRender prints available units at the end of the rendered equations.

To obtain units, it looks in the cell immediately to the right of the cell containing the formula. LaTeX commands can be used to form these units. e.g.

LaTeX

Units Displayed

N/mm^2

\frac{N}{mm^2}

Appearance

The units are displaced a short distance after the rendered equation in square brackets. The units are always assumed to be defined in LaTeX notations.

Usage

If no units are provided for the selected cell, then fxRender will form an expression for the units using the any available units associated with references cells - essentially displaying the rendered equation again but with units instead of variables used. This later feature is a superb way to check dimension consistency of an equation.

Display Unit can be used on its own to render a new equation, using the current selected cell as the assignment, with the cell on the immediate left becoming the main equation. As an example:

Becomes:

Font:

Times New Roman

Font size:

14

Style:

Excel

Display Unit can be configured as a default option in all rendered equations. To change the default state of the button, either select an empty cell and click the button or click the button with control-key pressed.

Redraw - Refreshes any rendered equations that would appear differently following changes in the underlying formulae or values within the sheet.

Example 8

Font:

Arial

Font size:

16

Style:

Excel

Next the values shown in Cells B2, B3 and B6 are changed to use new LaTeX style labels.

The rendered equations will not immediately updated to reflect the changes until the Redraw button is pressed.

Usage

This function updates all rendered equations on the current sheet to reflect any changes in values or content.

It doesn't change font, style, size, or anything else in the rendered equations.

Usage

Select cells that contain formulae that are rendered(illustrated) or select rendered equations that need to be deleted. Note Whole columns, rows or a range of cells may be selected (blank cells are ignored).

Press the Erase Selected button

Erase All - Remove all rendered equations from the current worksheet.

Usage

The Erase All button should be used with care as their is no easy way to undo the actions. For this when this button is used a a Popup window with the message: "Are you sure you want to delete all Rendered Equations?" will appear. Pressing Ok if you're sure you want to erase all rendered equations from the current sheet.

Expand and Shrink

The part of the ribbon defines the level of detail shown in rendered equations.

Expand

Expand Formula - Combines one level of precedent formulae into the current rendered equation.

Example 9

Font:

Times New Roman

Font size:

16

Style:

Matrix

Select cell C6, which contains the formula "=C4*C3".

Click the any of the main rendering buttons, in this case we've used Cell Name

Now press the Expand button to include more detail within the rendered equation:

Continued use of the Expand button will add additional precedent formulas into the rendered equation, i.e.

x 2

Usage

Use Expand Formula repetitively to achieve the designed expansion of the selected formula.

Shrink

Shrink Formula - Remove one level of precedent formulae from the current rendered equation. This button reverses the 'Expand Formula' above.

Usage

Use Shrink Formula reverse the expansion of a formula achieved with the Expand Formula button, eventually returning the equation to a more traditional state..

Format

This part of the ribbon defines how the rendered equations are displayed.

Formula Find

This part of the toolbar provides advanced text and numeric search within formulae.

Numbers

Find Numbers - Find formulas containing constant numbers.

Example 10

Font:

Century Gothic

Font size:

16

Style:

Excel

Find Numbers automatically highlights all cells containing a constant number. For example, in Cell C6, the constant is '12'.

Usage

To narrow down the range over which this function will search, you can select relevant rows, columns or a block of cells.

Find Numbers will highlight all cells with constant numbers.

Use the tab-key to cycle through the selection.

You may also render the selected formulas.

Strings

Find Strings - Find formulas containing text strings.

Example 11

Font:

Century Gothic

Font size:

16

Style:

Excel

Find Strings automatically highlights all cells containing a text string. For example "Correct", "Incorrect" and "weekend" are all text strings used in the above image.

Usage

To narrow down the range over which this function will search, you can select relevant rows, columns or a block of cells.

Find String will highlight all cells with constant numbers.

Use the tab-key to cycle through the selection.

You may also render the selected formulas.

Additional Options

This part of the ribbon contains additional options and controls

CodeCogs' Equation Editor - Launches the online CodeCogs Equation Editor and populates this with formula from the current cell. This allows you to publish your Excel formula online and/or make further edits to the equation.

Clip

Copy LaTeX - copies to the clipboard the equation in LaTeX mathematical mark-up, which is a widely accepted language for describing equations. This mark-up language can also be used in the CodeCogs Equation Editor.

Help - This drop-down menu provides a range of additional options, most notably a link to this page for instructions on using fxRender, Our about page that details the team behind this products, and (optionally) links to forums and social media sites.

Network Settings - this opens a dialogue that is helps you connect fxRender with the central CodeCogs servers. This is requires to retrieve the licence, and provide our the online functionality integrated within fxRender.

Options - this opens a dialogue box that allows you to tune the behaviour of fxRender, including changing the way it detects cell labels within matrices.

Gotchas

This section details a couple of limitation between fxRender and the Excel API.

Although we will continue to think of alternative solutions, we are currently not able to implement Undo/Redo feature and users will experience a disconnect between render equations and the underlying cells if they insert new rows or columns. More detail is below

Undo: The Excel Undo and Redo buttons do not work on rendered formulas. Generally this isn't a problem since its easy in fxRender to select a group of cell and re-rendered the equations or delete them entirely. Remember if you get really stuck and want to reset the sheet to a pre-fxRender state then press the Erase All button ().

Insert Column or Row: If you insert columns or rows that move equations that have been rendered by fxRender, the link between the Excel Cell and the rendered equation is lost. This is because the parent cell for each rendered equation is stored in the Alternative-Text field behind each fxRender equation (which is really just an image). The only solution is to delete the orthaned equations and render them again. Our experimental new function, Fx() detailed below, aims to address this issue in the future.

Hidden Text: If you select a cell and press the Equate button (), it will render the text shown in that cell and make the original text transparent. This is usefull for converting a variable label, say "\alpha" into a the symbol 'α'. However, if you then delete the graphical image by selecting it and pressing the 'Del' key, the original text does not re-appear. Simple select the cell with the hidden text and press the Erase button (), or change the text colour for the cell in the noraml way.

Experimental

These features are experimental and are likely to change in furture versions of the product. Use with care.

Automatic Update - It is often desirable to have rendered equations automatically update when the formulae or values they represent change. This is now enabled usig our experimental function,

Fx(range, mode, level, box, volatile)

where:

range

a cell reference

Defines what to render, and should be a link to one or more Cell, e.g. "A1" or "C2:C5".

mode

text string

Defines how to render the cells in range are rendered. A list of letters should be used, with

N - Render using Cell Names [The default option]

V - Render using Cell Values

R - Render using Cell References

U - Render using Cell Units

= - Display assignment

level

integer value

Defines the number of level an equation should be expanded. [Default is 0]

box

True or False

Adds a box and white background to the equation if option is True. [Default=True]

volatile

True or Flase

Use this rarely, we're not even sure this is necessary, but in theory their may be circumstances where the rendered equation needs to change, even though no cells on the active sheet have themselves been altered. [Default=False]